Long before he was being hailed by President Obama as the right man to protect American consumers from the predatory behavior of financial institutions, Richard Cordray was running for attorney general in Ohio.

He won, of course, and went on to successfully sue win billions from AIG, Bank of American and other banks.

But when he was that candidate in 1998, he wrote an op-ed on the class action lawsuits against tobacco companies and Microsoft (full text below).

The crux of his argument: when Ohio had a chance to win billions from tobacco companies, it stalled and only joined after public outcry, unnecessarily delaying recovery of the settlement funds; in the Microsoft case, Ohio jumped in quickly, even though the case promised to be expensive to litigate and offer little in return to taxpayers.

Cordrays' logic almost sounds like it was co-authored by the former editor of the Harvard Law Review who appointed him.

Applied to his current role and you can extrapolate that Cordray will go after banks aggressively when the danger or wrongdoing is clear and there is a clear path to prevent harm, win big damages or force a significant settlement. If he can't do just that, expect his to calmly lay out why, with the context being what it is, the costs outweigh any potential gains.

That kind of rhetoric would fit in pretty well with the current inhabitant of West Wing too.

Full text of then candidate for Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray's op-ed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer (June 17, 1998):

"In the last year, Ohio has made some questionable decisions about joining national lawsuits. For example, Ohio's in the back of the line of states suing the tobacco industry, but in the front of the line of states suing Microsoft. These policies do not represent the public interest or match the desires of Ohio citizens. We need a new approach that will lead to smarter decisions about how we spend our precious taxpayer dollars.

A few years ago, Mississippi came up with a brilliant idea. Mike Moore, the state's attorney general, decided to sue the tobacco industry to recover the money the state had spent to pay for medical care for people with smoking-related illnesses. This concept immediately caught on around the country, and a number of states - including Florida, Texas and Minnesota - quickly filed their own suits.

Ohio took no action. By early last year, 19 states already had filed suit, and Ohio Attorney General Betty Montgomery was expected finally to join the suit as well.

Instead, Montgomery announced that Ohio would not be taking part in the fight against tobacco, explaining that suing the tobacco companies was "not a priority" for her office. After a public outcry, and after six more states got ahead of Ohio in line, Montgomery reversed herself and finally filed a lawsuit after several more months had passed.

Because of this delay, Ohio is still a long way away from having its case go to trial. Ohio stands 26th in line, and the painstaking judicial system is only up to the fifth lawsuit.

Meanwhile, the states that acted quickly already have recovered billions of dollars in settlements with the tobacco industry, money that can be used to increase spending on education, improve the enforcement of environmental laws, fund efforts to decrease teen smoking or allow states to reduce taxes. For example, Texas has settled for more than $15 billion and Florida has settled for more than $11 billion.

Just a few weeks ago, Minnesota - a state with a much smaller population than Ohio - received almost $7 billion in a settlement with the tobacco industry. But Ohio has received absolutely nothing.

And these settlements provide for more than just cash payments. Because Florida's leaders did the right thing, they have put an end to billboards advertising cigarettes to impressionable kids. And thanks to Minnesota, the tobacco industry has agreed to close its national research foundation, which for years sought to document that smoking is not harmful to people's health.

Ohio's citizens need to question why their leaders were so slow to join the fight to stop smoking. But they also need to question why their leaders were so quick to join the fight against Microsoft. After all, Microsoft products have greatly increased American productivity, and they do not cause cancer. The federal Department of Justice has hundreds of lawyers who study the economy to find potential antitrust violations and protect consumers. These attorneys do an excellent job and are among the most talented lawyers in the nation.

There is nothing for Ohio to gain from pursuing Microsoft. After all, Attorney General Montgomery openly admits that Ohio will not receive any money from this effort. So once the federal government decided to sue Microsoft, antitrust experts like the University of Cincinnati's Christo Lassiter have said that Ohio's participation is totally unnecessary.

So why sue Microsoft? And why wait so long to sue the tobacco companies? Those are questions that only the Attorney General can answer. But they need to be asked, since Ohio taxpayers are going to spend up to $100,000 to sue Microsoft and potentially have lost billions of dollars due to the prolonged delay in suing the tobacco companies.

My proposal is that Ohio should involve itself in national lawsuits only when the state can either (a) recover money for taxpayers, or (b) vindicate a moral principle that may otherwise go unaddressed. The tobacco lawsuit does both: It brings in money for the state, if filed early enough, and it helps advance the fight to discourage and reduce teen smoking. Ohio's participation in the Microsoft lawsuit does neither: The state cannot recover a penny, and Ohio's involvement will not change Microsoft's business (should it even need changing) in any way.

Memo: Cordray is a law professor at Ohio State University and the Democratic candidate for attorney general."

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The Bleachers

Obama also signed the NDAA which everyone Must be aware of by now...no thanks to the media which has mostly ignored this hugely important fact.

Now the media is telling us that Flip flopper John Kerryesque rich buddy Romney will save America from power grabbing Obama just as Obama was to save us from power grabbing Bush....Gingrich...an opportunistic and apparently heartless man. Santorum...an extremist who has no problem killing brown babies in many countries if it will get him elected but is anti abortion. I'm sure they will all strike down the NDAA. (LOL) And the candidate who has stood for 30 years for small govt, bringing troops home, civil liberties, and restoring the constitution, the Media implores you is looney, old (although he is the same age as Reagan) and not to be considered electable. Hmmm...